


Peace through popular music

by intravenusann



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dancing, Dancing Lessons, M/M, Musical References, Pining, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:39:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5695132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intravenusann/pseuds/intravenusann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam teaches Bucky about music. Bucky teaches Sam how to dance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peace through popular music

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for Justin Beiber. Truly written because of a twitter conversation with my friend Kate. All pairing stuff is, I think, very subtle. Everyone wants to kiss, but no one does.
> 
> I may continue this, because it doesn't feel finished yet.

They keep spotting Barnes — or Buck, or the Winter Soldier, or whoever that guy is. But, of course, crowds or passing cars or turned corners help him disappear. Steve says they’re getting closer and Sam agrees, but he’s not sure how close he wants to get. 

But Steve insists.

“He remembers,” he says. “We’ll make him remember.”

Sam looks at the passenger seat of the car they bought off Craigslist for almost nothing. It is probably stolen. They didn’t ask too many questions.

“We’ll see,” he says.

He turns the radio on as they head toward the place the waitress at the diner where they keep almost catching Barnes says he’s staying. It’s still tuned to some oldies station that Steve can tolerate a little better than the Top 40s Sam was playing before. This car is too old to have an AUX connection and Sam’s iPod feels wasted, packed in his bag in the backseat.

They pull up outside the squat concrete and tin building, which looks like it’s all storage. No one could be living here comfortably, Sam is sure of it. But what is comfort to the Winter Soldier?

Of course, Sam slept in the driver’s seat of a Craigslist car last night.

Comfort is relative.

He leans his head against the back of the seat, which jostles slightly to the left where it’s a little broken. The lyrics on the radio move the forefront of his mind — no longer just background noise.

“Are you somewhere feeling lonely? Or is someone loving you?”

Sam looks at the radio, as though it’s just told one of Steve’s flat, corny jokes. But it’s really the universe playing this joke. He starts to laugh. Steve looks at him as if he’s lost his mind.

“It’s Lionel Richie,” Sam says.

“Alright,” Steve says, because he’s probably never heard this song before in his life. He’s never seen the creepy video and that weird sculpted head. He doesn’t know the lyrics by heart.

“Hello,” Sam sings at Steve. “Is it me you’re looking for?” 

“Sam,” Steve says. But even if he’s never heard the song before, there is this very slight twist to the corner of Steve’s mouth that says he gets the joke.

“Cause I wonder where you are,” Sam continues. “And I wonder what you do.”

“Are you somewhere feeling lonely?” he asks, holding his hand out to Steve in the passenger seat. “Or is someone loving you?”

“Sam, knock it off.” 

“Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven’t—”

He stops when Steve puts his hand in his and pushes his arm down. There’s that little furrow between Steve’s eyebrows like he’s disappointed in Sam, disappointed by how close they’ve come to finding Barnes and how far they always find themselves from reaching him. The look packs such an emotional punch that Sam’s always surprised the universe doesn’t just get in line and stop disappointing Captain America. 

“I’ll go,” Steve says.

“I’m coming with you,” Sam says.

They both get out of the car.

\---

For some crazy reason, Sam thought it would be easy once they found Barnes. Either he wouldn’t remember — or he would. Sam even thought they were lucky when it turned out he did remember.

But Barnes wasn’t running from them, as it turns out.

Sam keeps his iPod charged and texts Natasha Romanoff from numbers created by a burner app on his phone. Everything they need can fit in the trunk of a car. It doesn’t even need to be the same car, and shouldn’t be week to week. 

Steve and Barnes squeeze their broad shoulders into the tiny bathroom of a one-room twelfth-floor walk-up. Steve speaks in a low voice, as though there could be privacy in a place as small as this. Barnes speaks quietly because, Sam thinks, he’s been quiet for a very long time. He is cutting his own hair. Steve is helping. The apartment is so small that Sam can still smell the dollar store shaving cream Barnes used to get his face to look a little less like a vagrant’s.

“Don’t you want it shorter?” Steve asks.

“No,” Barnes says.

“It’s different,” Steve whispers. “Looks good on you.”

“Thinking of growing yours out, Rogers?” Barnes asks.

Steve laughs a little and that’s the only way Sam would know it’s a joke. The Winter Soldier is not good at tone. Or, else, Barnes is even more droll than Steve is. Sam doesn’t know how much of that he could take.

Sam gets a horrible idea.

He gets his laptop out of his bag and opens iTunes. The person whose wifi they are stealing has a very fast internet connection. Barnes guessed the password, which kind of freaks Sam out. But Natasha says she could have done the same, so maybe it’s a black ops thing.

He clearly picked the wrong direction for his military career if the spooks can just have free wifi whenever.

The song cost $1.29 and Sam is going to have it stuck in his head for days. The beat swells and fades, with snaps to compliment the sexy vocals. Well, sexy for a Top 40 chart hit by a former Disney child star.

Steve and Barnes pretty much ignore him, which Sam expects. He’s just doing this to entertain himself. But by the second round of “Do my hair up right,” Steve is looking out the bathroom door at Sam. He leans back in his cheap plastic chair and looks right back at Steve.

The dead ends of Barnes’ hair go down the sink drain. He rubs his head with a towel and pulls on a long-sleeve shirt. This one is grey, but he also has one in red and another in an ugly army green. Everything is a size too big, like it would fit Steve better than it fits Barnes. He lets his damp hair hang loose and Sam has to agree that it looks better. If he pulled it back, he could look like some young guy hauling crates of beer in a dive bar. It’s certainly an improvement over looking like a traumatized junkie.

Sam doesn’t want to fool himself into thinking he understands Barnes, but Barnes wouldn’t be the first hollow-eyed, flat-voiced soldier missing an arm that Sam has met. They all tend to forget to shave.

“What song were you playing before?” Barnes asks. “I liked it.”

Sam smiles. “Just some pop song.”

“What song?”

“It’s called ‘Good for You’ by this girl named Selena Gomez,” Sam says. “She used to be on television when she was a kid, but now I guess she’s a singer.”

“Does she have other songs?” Barnes asks.

“Oh definitely,” Sam says.

Behind Barnes, Steve looks mildly worried with his eyebrows all scrunched together.

“But if you liked Selena, I think there’s some other singers you might like,” Sam says. “Have you ever heard of Lauryn Hill?”

He doesn’t expect a response, really, but Barnes shakes his head. His hair moves with him, tapping the edge of his jaw.

Sam types the first few letters — Laury — into the search bar of iTunes.

“Pull up a seat, Barnes,” Sam says. “Let’s see if you’re any better a student than your pal Steve.”

\--- 

“That’s my iPod,” Sam says.

“Yes,” Barnes says, where he sits on the kitchen counter with little white earbuds in his ears.

“Wondered where it walked off to,” Sam says. “Wasn’t getting enough of the pop music I keep playing for you? Or are you looking for the actually good songs.”

“The music you play me is actually good,” Barnes says.

Sam snorts.

“But I wanted to listen to something else,” he adds.

“What?” Sam asks.

He leans close, but not too close, trying to see what album art is on the screen. It’s not anything he recognizes.

“Glen Miller,” Barnes says.

“Who?” Sam asks.

“Before your time,” Barnes tells him.

“Alright, but how did it get on my iPod,” Sam says.

“I watched you type in your password on your laptop once,” Barnes says.

Sam swears softly and stands upright. “You owe me, then. All that gets charged to my credit card.”

“Sorry,” Barnes says, without inflection.

“You’re not,” Sam says.

Barnes looks at him.

“Well,” he says, “let’s hear it.”

Barnes keeps looking at him, but Sam is not willing to look away or blink. Not after this guy hacked his iTunes account to get at some World War II-era pop music.

“Alright,” Barnes says. He goes to the same little speaker stand that Sam has been using to subject Steve and Barnes both to every barely legal pop star he can think of, and plugs the iPod in.

The music sounds pretty much the way Sam expected — lots of horns. The melodies are catchy and there’s a simple beat under all of it that he can tap his toes to in his shoes.

“Do you like it?” Barnes asks. His expression barely changes, and Sam wonders if he really cares.

“Yeah, it’s not bad.”

The song switches into something slower, sweeter.

“Does Steve like this kind of stuff?” Sam asks.

Barnes shrugs. “He’d come out dancing with me sometimes. I don’t think he really liked it. Liked it even less during the war.”

“But you liked it,” Sam says, and he knows he’s going into counselor mode here. He can hear it in his voice, but he doesn’t know if Barnes knows.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m not a good dancer, like Steve, but I liked it.”

“Oh, really?” Sam asks. “Steve dances?”

Barnes grins, which is not nearly as disturbing as maybe it ought to be — a sudden flash of teeth and then gone. “They had him doing shows.”

“I knew about that,” Sam tells him. Barnes nods, without a smile.

The stare breaks when Barnes looks down at the ground. Sam looks away to make his coffee — soundtracked by big band or swing or whatever this is exactly. He pours the grounds into the filter and fills the machine’s reservoir. No one using this house, apparently, has any kind of manners about coffee makers. He watches the machine shudder and steam, then waits until there’s probably enough for a cup in the pot. Coffee spills onto the heating element when he takes the pot away before it’s finished, but he’s quick.

“I have no idea how to dance to this kind of music,” Sam says. “You or Steve should show me sometime.”

He looks at Barnes to see his reaction. Barnes pushes himself off the kitchen counter and walks away. On his way out, he turns the music off with a motion so quick Sam could’ve missed it with a blink.

He stands, alone, with his coffee. That sure was something, he thinks. How much of his money did Barnes spend on music anyway?

\---

From the look on his face every time Sam puts on music videos for Barnes, Steve thinks Sam is only doing this to make his life difficult. The truth is, Steve’s open annoyance with pop music pales in comparison to Barnes’ open enjoyment it.

Steve excused himself to buy groceries when they played the music video for “Uptown Funk” six times in a row — though Barnes had memorized the choreography after the second viewing. Sam shows him the video for “Trumpets” — then uses it as a springboard to introduce the Winter Soldier to Kanye West, Katy Perry and Coldplay.

(He likes Katy Perry the best, which Sam wouldn’t have predicted.)

“She’s a pretty girl,” Barnes says. “What did you expect?”

No amount of nudity in the music videos seems to offend Barnes — not Jason Derulo’s naked, tattooed chest nor the woman working the pole for him.

“You should have seen the parties we threw in Paris,” Barnes says, and for a little while he smiles.

“How come Steve gets so flustered then?” Sam asks. “He’s as old as you are. Didn’t he go to the same parties?”

Barnes shrugs. “Steve is...”

Sam expects something poignant or thoughtful after the pause.

“A goddamn prude.”

“Hey!” Steve says. “I am not.”

“You’d put a sweater on the nudes in the Louvre,” Barnes says, and Sam can’t do anything but laugh.

Steve goes back to ignoring them while Sam educates Barnes on how hip-hop entered the popular music scene.

When Steve leaves the room or the safe house or the sub-sublet apartment, that’s when Barnes is willing to get up and actually dance. He won’t show Sam any of his own moves — that’s a sure way to get Barnes to shut up and stop responding. For now, whatever, Sam has other things to be upset about. He’ll take his fifteen minutes of YouTube and Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, teaching himself how to dance like Beyoncé.

“Sorry” comes out just as the shit really hits the fan. YouTube suggests the video to Sam — it's a dance video. He listens to it with headphones first and, well, Steve is definitely going to hate him. But he's pretty sure Barnes will love it.

So the next of Nat’s safe houses, Sam sets up his laptop on the IKEA coffee table with some books under it so they can see the screen better from the couch.

“You're going to like this one,” he says, grinning.

Barnes looks at him. “How many naked women are in this video?”

“None,” Sam says. “But it's still good.”

They watch the video once. Sam looks at Barnes to his left. Barnes looks at him and leans over to hit the little loop button. This time, Barnes follows the hand motions, his eyes locked on the screen.

Must be nice to be superhuman, because Sam could never keep up with these moves. He feels fairly certain the video is sped up in places. But Barnes follows it to speed.

“You're right,” he says. “This is fun.”

The next time around, Barnes gets up. In some places, he changes the choreography — apparently just because he wants to. This six-foot-something man with two days of stubble and an oversized shirt buttoned all the way up dances like a teenage girl in a Justin Bieber video just for a couple minutes. Sam can't help himself, he gets to his feet.

“Broads, ya know, they always know how to have the most fun dancin’,” Barnes says. “Too many guys get hung up on some shit and can't cut loose.”

“Like Steve?” Sam asks.

“Like Steve,” Barnes says. “I mean, I love the guy, but that's always how he's been. He's a fighter, not a lover.”

“Isn't it usually the other way around?” Sam asks.

“Nah,” Barnes says. “That was… That was me, I guess. The guy I used to be — he was a lover.”

Sam doesn't need to ask what Barnes thinks he is now, if not a lover. They are the same thing — soldiers. Steve is their captain and he is leading them through this, whatever it is.

Soldiers go to war, so this must be a war.

They get through a few more plays of the song before Steve comes back, takes one listen and tells Sam to turn it off in a quiet voice that Sam can't refuse. He pleads, instead of commanding. This guy, he wants to ask Barnes, this guy is more of a fighter than lover?

But who would know better than Barnes?

\---

The girl — the witch — she doesn't care much for Justin Bieber or Beyoncé. Steve asks him not to play that Sorry song anymore; he uses “please.”

The places they sleep in become quiet. Barnes doesn't smile. He doesn't shave.

“Play some of your tunes,” Sam tells him, finally. “I feel like I'm in prison, it's so quiet.”

“You've been to prison?” Barnes asks.

“Don't be racist,” Sam says.

“I've been to prison,” Barnes says. “Or something like it. A prisoner.”

Sam pauses.

“I put some Benny Goodman on your iPod last week,” Barnes says. “Play that.”

It is impossible to refuse. He's not sure he wants to hear anything going through Barnes’ head right now, though it might benefit him to get it out.

“You still want me to teach you how to dance?” Barnes asks.

“Sure,” Sam says. “Don't expect me to keep up with you right away, though, I'm no Fred Astaire.”

“Do I look like Ginger Rogers to you?” Barnes asks.

“Well, I mean,” Sam says, shrugging. “If you bleached your hair.”

Barnes doesn’t smile, but he rolls his eyes in a way he either learned from Steve or Steve learned from him. Hopefully that means he’s as amused as Steve would be.

He gets his iPod, but Barnes takes it out of his hand. He stares at it intently for a little while, with one white earbud in, then picks up the other earbud and holds it out to Sam.

“Here,” he says.

Sam takes it and steps close enough that he can put the earbud in his left ear.

Now Sam recognizes the song — he actually listens to all the music Barnes puts on his iPod. He surprises him by throwing in plenty of jazz and blues, which Sam has helpfully told Barnes his grandmother used to play for him as a kid.

“Sorry,” Barnes says, very softly, before he puts his left hand on Sam’s shoulder.

Sam bites his tongue, actually bites himself, to keep from asking what Barnes is apologizing for.

“What’s that face?” Barnes asks.

“Not sure what to do with my hands,” he says.

“My waist,” Barnes says. “Haven’t you ever danced with a girl before?”

“None as direct as you,” Sam says. “Or as tall.”

“I was taller than Steve when I taught him to dance,” Barnes says. “And he danced with girls just fine.”

Sam puts both hands on Barnes’ waist, because he’s not going to argue about this. Under his flannel shirt, Barnes is that same kind of too-hot as Steve. He takes Sam’s left hand off of his waist and puts their hands together.

Barnes’ left hand isn’t hot like his right, it’s a heavy, but neutral weight on Sam’s shoulder.

“Follow my feet,” Barnes says.

“Don’t step on my toes,” Sam says. “Please.”

There’s something like humor, almost, in the glare Barnes levels at him.

Barnes steps backwards. Sam steps forward. Then he steps backwards when Barnes steps forwards. They turn slightly, accommodating the small room and the bed beside them.

“Looks like you’re not going to be teaching me any of those cool swing dancing flips and shit,” Sam says.

“Well I could,” Barnes says, “but you’d end up on the bed.”

“Or through the ceiling,” Sam adds, because he doesn’t know if Barnes meant to say it like that. He probably didn’t, so Sam has to crack a joke.

Barnes smiles a little. Not with teeth or anything, but the corner of his mouth lifts a little higher than the rest. They get back to stepping around each other and the furniture.

“I thought you liked flying,” Barnes says, quietly.

“I do,” Sam says. “But there’s not even room enough to do a two-step in here.”

At a certain point, Sam doesn’t need to watch Barnes’ feet to know where he’s going to put them. The song has changed over and they can move a little faster. Sam lets Barnes close the space between them, until they’re looking into each other’s eyes and their knees are nearly touching as they move.

He wonders how this went for Steve. They probably kissed, Sam thinks. Because he’s close enough for Barnes to kiss him like this and with Steve, well, Barnes doesn’t apologize to Steve before he touches them.

Sam is not dumb. He would’ve turned the world upside down for his partner, but they didn’t look at each other the way Steve and Barnes do. Sam didn’t look at his partner the way he looks at Steve, even. As dumb as that is, Sam just accepts it. As awful as it is, Sam sits with his guilt instead of letting it stop him.

The most wanted man in the world is teaching him how to step around like it’s 1939. The rest of this safe house is full of other people wanted by the federal government and a few other governments around the world, as well as shadowy para-governmental organizations. Sam would say he’s pretty crazy, after all he walked right into this. He didn’t have to follow Steve, but what kind of soldier says no to Captain America?

“You know, Wilson, you ain’t half bad at this,” Barnes says.

“Thanks,” Sam says. “But don’t have to call me Wilson.”

“You prefer Falcon?” Barnes asks. “Or Sam?”

“Sam works,” he answers. “Steve calls me Sam.”

“I didn’t realize you and I were as close as you and Steve,” Barnes says.

He doesn’t know what Barnes means by that.

“Well,” Sam says. “Maybe we are.”

He’s not sure what he means either.

“You could call me Buck,” Barnes says.

“Not James or Buchanan?” Sam teases.

“No, Samuel,” Barnes says. “And not Bucky, either, if you would.”

“Buck is fine,” Sam says. “I guess… You just get used to using surnames.”

“Habits,” Barnes says. “We keep them up even when they stop making sense.”

“It’s human nature,” Sam says.

“Are we talking or are we dancing?” Buck asks.

Sam shrugs, Buck’s hand heavy on his shoulder. “We can do both.”

But for a full song, they just dance. The songs are all short.

“I’m still not used to Steve being taller than me,” Buck says, out of the blue. “Habits, y’know?”

Sam just listens.

“Had a chance to do this,” Buck says, “in Paris. Well, outside Paris. Little bar with enough room to move and no one there but… Our friends. Asked me to show him how to, because he owed a dance to a gal, to Peggy. I told him. I said, ‘Didn’t the showgirls teach ya?’ I think I regretted saying it then.”

“And now?”

“I regret it, yeah, but I regret everything now.”

“Even this?”

“I don’t know,” Buck says, and Sam’s not sure if he’s being honest. Yeah, there’s a lot that Buck doesn’t know.

“It’s alright if you’d rather be dancing with Steve,” Sam says. “I understand.”

“Because you’d rather be dancing with him too?” Buck asks, like he’s returning a blow instead of responding to Sam’s honesty.

“If I wanted to dance with Steve, I’d have asked him,” Sam says, annoyed. “I asked you.”

Barnes pulls away from him, heavy hand off of his shoulder and body heat gone before Sam can grab at the loose fabric of his shirt. The earbud pops out of Sam’s ear, the modern equivalent of a record scratch.

“I don’t know why I did that,” Barnes says.

“It’s alright,” Sam says. “Thanks for showing me how you dance to that kinda music.”

“No,” Barnes says. “I should thank you.”

“Why?” Sam asks. He laughs a little. “Please don’t say it’s because of the music I showed you, because that’s not even good music.”

“Fine,” Barnes says. “Then I won’t.”

He goes out the door and it takes Sam a minute of thinking — about the war they’re fighting, about whether it’s really for Buck at all, or whether it’s just for Steve’s need to make things right for Buck — before he realizes Barnes left with his iPod.

“Damnit, Barnes — I mean Buck. Damnit, Buck."

He laughs, with his hands in his pockets. “Buck you.”


End file.
